Abstract

A system for use in pharmacies which uses customer inputs to assist the customer with the selection of an appropriate non-prescription medication to relieve symptoms of an illness, injury or the like. The system uses an expert system to perform the selection. The system utilizes a personal computer with a keyboard, monitor and disk drive as input/output devices with appropriate programming for prompting a user to input information which is used by a knowledgebase to determine non-prescription medications which may be purchased by the customer to relieve symptoms of injuries and illnesses covered by the knowledgebase. The system operates by prompting a user at typically a customer in a pharmacy to input basic customer information. After the basic customer information has been input the customer is prompted to select one main symptom category from a list displayed and the choice made results in the appropriate knowledgebase being loaded for the next step. The logic of the loaded knowledgebase itself determines which questions are asked of the customer by the display of appropriate questions on the monitor. The output of each knowledgebase on completion of the questions and answers is a list of component medications recommended for use with the symptoms described. The list of component medications generated by the execution of the knowledgebase is used to search a database to find the appropriate product to be recommended.